Team Hoyt

I don't know if you've heard about Dick Hoyt, who does marathons and triathlons with his disabled adult son, but its super inspiring. Here is a link to their website where you can watch a video about them. Its pretty awesome. Enjoy.

Let It Snow--PUH-Lease!

I will admit to frequent daydreams of living somewhere tropical, like Hawaii, where I can run outside all year long, preferrably along a beach, and wear flip flops in December. :) So why, you may ask, am I anxiously awaiting more snow? The answer is simple--I live in UTAH. There's supposed to be snow here. If I'm going to live in a tree-less state (if you've ever lived in the South, East, or Pacific Northwest, you would call it tree-less too), then there better be some other perks, like snow and fun-filled snowy days. We haven't had too many of those lately. Its been practically balmy. Yes, good for running outside (except for the other day when I swear I got frostbite on my face during an early-morning run), but not good for snowman-making. We have been seriously deprived in that area lately. We did get one good snowfall a couple of weeks ago. It was beyond awesome to wake up and see this backyard view:

And my hottie after shoveling the driveway is a nice sight too. Oh wait, no, that was me who shoveled the three-foot wall of snow in front of our driveway that was given to us courtesy of the snow plow--while he was at the gym. Oh well, he's still a hottie.

Needless to say, we greeted the snow like a long-lost friend and played in it as much as possible.

We even built a little snow slide on the side of our driveway with our neighbors.

So so fun. But that was two weeks ago. We are ready for more! I've been wanting to try Holland out on the ski slopes this year, but its hard to do that when there isn't much snow. I don't like skiing on the man-made stuff too well. Who does though? Ok, I'll stop complaining now. :) It actually rained today. Its not supposed to rain in January! But hopefully that means snow is close behind....

Happy New Year! (A little late--of course).

Life is good, and we are grateful. And so far, 2012 has been pretty great too (knock on wood, he he). We had a great holiday season--how can it not be great with my two little ones wearing their brand-new cowboy boots every chance they get, even with pajamas? Adorable, I tell you. And I don't even have a picture of one such instance; I will have to remedy that.

I love New Year's Eve--family, games, and tons of yummy food--what more could you possibly want? We had a fun party at Kylee's house, and Elise's family came too. Kylee's hubby made his famously yummy eggrolls--hmm, just typing about them makes me crave them. Here's Ry and Everett partying it up:
And the girls: Sydney, Sammy, and Holland (in dress-ups, of course):

Myself with two of my cute sisters, Ky and Elise:

And the cousins:

My cute little party animals:

David actually took the days off between Christmas and New Year's just because, and I have to say, it was awesome. I went into withdrawls when he went back to work. I told him my ideal job for him would be one that he could work one day a week but get paid for 5. he he. So let me know if you find any of those, k? :) We just hung out and played that whole week, and did things like going to the movies, ice skating, playing at Boondocks, and going roller skating (doing the hokey pokey and the chicken dance in the middle of a roller skating rink with my 5 year old was pretty much a dream come true for me and the highlight of my week). :) Seriously, she was so amazingly cute, I wish I had it on video. David took each of the kids on a Daddy date, and they LOVED it. He took Ryder to the airforce museum, which Ryder LOVES and Hol not so much, so it was perfect. He and Holland went to the shooting range where Holland shot her first .22 and hit her target lots of time. David was practically glowing when they got home. He felt the same way about sharing his love of target shooting with Holland that I did doing the hokey pokey with her. :) Holland talked about it for days, and gave lots of people the gun safety lecture that David gave her--just because she could. Kinda funny.

I am excited for the start of another great year with my cute family.

Family Pictures

We got these taken a few weeks ago, so I thought I'd share.

Vader Did you Know?

I found this quite hilarious, maybe because I've never been a fan of the song "Mary Did You Know" (I don't really know why, its probably just because I'm a cold-hearted woman). :) But I definitely like the Star Wars version best. Don't get offended if you don't. Please. Thanks. :)

Christmas Cheery Stuff

WARNING: LOTS of pictures ahead. :) I probably should have broken this up into three different posts, but let's face it, what are the chances of me actually remembering to post THREE times?? :) Hence, the long post.

We had a fantastic Christmas, and here are a few of our highlights:

Holland loved acting out the nativity story with just the four of us, because then she got to be like three different people.

On the Friday before Christmas we had the Jensen Family Christmas party, and it was lots of fun. Here's all the grandkids doing Grandma's pass along game to a poem/story she wrote. Very cute.

The kids are showing off their cool new hats Aunt Maria made them:

Then after the party, we swung by Holland's birth family's house and had a very nice visit with them. I love this picture of David (birth grandpa David, not my David) reading the kids 'Twas The Night Before Christmas. It actually made me teary, it was very sweet.

Holland and Zoe (Kearsten's little sister, so technically Hol's "aunt!"). She LOVES Zoe!!

Holland and Kearsten striking Holland's pose. Its gotten to the point now where I have to beg Holland to do other poses when I take her picture. :) But its still cute.

I loved visiting with them. We sure love Hol's birth family, and are so grateful for them.

On Saturday night, we had our annual Christmas Eve party with my family, and this year it was at Darcy's house. It was so fun, we had a yummy dinner and a program and played games. Darce tweaked how we do the nativity story a little--we used the grown-ups instead of the kids and did it while singing a song--I loved it. Very short, sweet, and a lot less chaotic. :)

I love this picture of Darcy and Ryder--they were playing while Mark was reading from the scriptures--oops. :)

Darcy had all of the grandkids sing a couple of songs, which was so cute. And Holland sang Silent Night by herself, then we had a couple of piano duets.

Getting ready to play our white elephant gift game (I love the flying Ryder):

Hol and Syd:

Holland, very happy with her gift from the game--a snuggie:

After the party, we tracked Santa on Norad about a bazillion more times, and when he was getting closer to Utah (Ok, it was really like Kentucky, but we told the kids that was really close), the kiddos went to bed.

They didn't wake up until 7:30 on Christmas morning, which I am grateful for. I'm sure the days of 5am Christmas mornings are coming. :)

I made smoothies while the kids played with stuff from their stockings, then we got down to present opening!

Ryder broke out some chocolate from his stocking really fast, but since it was Christmas, we let him. :)

Ryder with his new Woody doll:

Hol got a walking puppy, which I think is a bit freaky. :)

Ryder finally got some boy dress-ups! No more princess dresses for him!

I love Holland's face while opening her American Girl Doll.

My boys putting together some car tracks:

Another dress up? Sure, why not, you can't have too many, right? :)

Taking her new scooter out for a spin:

Santa gave the kids some sling shot animals in their stockings that make noise when you sling them, and they LOVE them:

Since we do our big family stuff the days leading up to Christmas, we just kind of hang out by ourselves on Christmas day, playing with all of our new toys. We got back in our pj's after church to more fully enjoy the day. he he. We had a great day--I think I played Operation like 12 times, so what can be better than that? :) Then I made a turkey dinner which we ate by candlelight--so so fun. It was a wonderful Christmas, and I'm still a little sad its over. But at least we have New Years to look forward to....:)